Hunted and Honoured: Animal Representations in Precontact Masks from the Nunalleq Site, Southwest Alaska (original) (raw)
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Bridging Past and Present: A Study of Precontact Yup’ik Masks from the Nunalleq Site, Alaska
Arctic Anthropology, 2019
This article examines precontact Yup’ik masks, maskettes, and mask fragments recently recovered from the Nunalleq site (16th–17th century AD) near the village of Quinhagak, Alaska. Remarkable in their number, size, and variety of designs, the Nunalleq masks, which represent spirits, humans, and animals, indicate a very active ceremonial life among the residents of Nunalleq settlement. This paper combines archaeological, ethnographic, and oral history accounts to demonstrate the existence of a rich mask-carving tradition in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta flourishing at least two centuries prior to European contact. The iconography of Nunalleq masks shows interesting regional connections as well as strong continuity between the pre- and postcontact Yup’ik mask making. Mask-making traditions are conservative, but far from frozen, and some fluidity can be observed within the Nunalleq mask assemblage over the course of ca. 150 years of the site’s occupation.
Animals as Agents: Hunting Ritual and Relational Ontologies in Prehistoric Alaska and Chukotka
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2011
In this article, I discuss the ways in which animals act as ontological subjects -as otherthan-human persons and as agents in myth and ritual. First I outline how humans conceive of and behave with animals and their remains in indigenous cosmologies using ethnographic and ethnohistoric examples from the Arctic, Subarctic and Amazonia. I then explore the archaeological evidence for indigenous ontologies along the coasts of Chukotka and Alaska, arguing that prehistoric hunters interacted with animals as agential persons, engaging in social practices intended to facilitate hunting success and avoid offending prey. Two forms of ritual activities are discussed: the use of hunting amulets and the caching of animal bones and antlers.
études inuit studies, 2019
Birds have been an integral part of traditional Yup'ik lifeways in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, southwest Alaska, both economically and symbolically. From a subsistence point of view, the rich ethnographic record for the region highlights the importance of this resource as a critical seasonal food and a source of raw materials for clothing and tools. Little is known of bird exploitation in precontact Yup'ik society, however, as a result of limited archaeological research in the region, which thus constrains our ability to understand subsistence strategies prior to Euro-American contact. Recent excavations at the Nunalleq site (sixteenth to seventeenth century AD) have yielded a well-preserved avian assemblage that provides the opportunity to explore the use of birds during the late prehistoric period in the region. In this paper, we present the results of our preliminary zooarchaeological and technological analyses of this material. These new data demonstrate that a relatively wide range of taxa were harvested by precontact Yupiit, reflecting their multiple uses of birds. People not only exploited birds for their meat but also targeted specific taxa for the qualities of their skins for making parkas, their feathers as adornments or for fletching arrows, and their bones for making needles and other tools. Though this study shows a certain degree of continuity between precontact and historic Yup'ik subsistence practices, it also highlights a gradual decline in the non-dietary use of birds and the gradual increase in the intake of birds primarily targeted as sources of food in more recent times. études inuit studies 43 (1-2): 169-196
études inuit studies, 2019
Centred on the underresearched precontact archaeology of southwest coastal Alaska, the Nunalleq project is a decade-long collaboration between the Yup'ik village of Quinhagak and the University of Aberdeen. The Nunalleq archaeological site, like countless others in the Arctic, is being rapidly destroyed by the combined effects of global warming. Newly thawed permafrost soils are extremely vulnerable to rapid marine erosion from rising sea levels and decreases in seasonal ocean ice cover. Organic artifacts at the site have been preserved in remarkably intact condition, revealing an extraordinary record of precontact Yup'ik culture. But with the disappearing permafrost, this archaeological and ecological record is gradually decomposing, and recovery and analysis has become time critical. The Nunalleq project is a community-based response to locally identified needs to both recover threatened archaeological heritage and to find new ways to reconnect young people to Yup'ik culture and tradition. The results of the project have far exceeded our original expectations. Similar collaborative efforts may be the best hope for addressing threatened archaeological heritage in the North and beyond.
The Nonempirical Past: Enculturated Landscapes and Other-than-human Persons in Southwest Alaska
Arctic Anthropology, 2012
In 1971, Ernest S. Burch identifi ed "nonempirical phenomena" as variables in travel and settlement decision-making among Iñupiaq Eskimo of Northwest Alaska. This article parses the term "nonempirical" and advocates the use of term "other-than-human" to describe the extraordinary persons known to Yupiit and Inupiat of Alaska. I discuss the ways in which place names and oral narratives can contribute to an understanding of the relational, intersubjective nature of Yupiit interactions with other-than-human persons and describe how such relations were anchored in enculturated landscapes. Finally, I address how archaeology is uniquely positioned to contribute to reconstructions of prehistoric ontologies that materialized relations between "real people" and the other-than-human persons with whom they shared the animated, dynamic landscapes of Southwest Alaska.
Studies in Conservation, 2023
Seven Central Yup'ik masks from Alaska owned by the Anima Mundi Museum, the ethnological museum at the Vatican, were examined in the museum's Conservation Laboratory over five months in 2022 by Ellen Pearlstein, in consultation with Chuna McIntyre, a Yup'ik artist and culture bearer. Technical details were documented and these together with cultural meanings were explored jointly by the two authors. The authors explored the history of Catholic missionary acquisition and technologies available to Yup'ik carvers in the 1920s, and ways in which the masks departed from traditional technologies at the time of their manufacture and were altered since then within a museum setting. Such modifications were likely designed to permit Yup'ik masks to take on different functions than sacred or social performance, such that their authenticity might be questioned. In working as co-authors, the criteria for authenticity were defined to be whether the material manifestations of these Yup'ik masks evoked the intangible meanings understood by and significant to a Yup'ik culture bearer. The masks achieve this goal, as do contemporary Yup'ik masks that introduce additional new materials and techniques. It is impossible for non-Yup'ik to decide whether masks evoke sacred and social performativity, therefore conservators of other backgrounds are advised to collaborate with community members in their assessment of culturally distant materials.
Ethnohistoric documents as analogical tools: A case study from northwest Alaska
Archaeologists endeavour to reconstruct technological, environmental, social, cultural, and even ideological aspects of past groups and individuals using the fragmented material past. Many, if not all, of these analyses rely on analogy. Archaeologists have used the direct historical approach extensively in the Arctic to develop more nuanced understandings of the prehistoric Inuit. In many cases, the direct historical approach is not truly direct; archaeologists often assume that secondary activities, such as those that occur contemporaneously with initial deposition but that are not described in the ethnographic record such as cleaning and post-depositional processes such as weathering, alter the archaeological patterns and inhibit direct comparison to ethnohistoric sources. In this study, I analyse the relationship between the archaeological record and documentary sources to establish which patterns and activities are visible in the archaeofaunal record. I test expectations based on the documentary record, ethnoarchaeological studies, and taphonomic processes against the faunal assemblage from an early Thule Inuit semi-subterranean dwelling at Cape Espenberg, Alaska. Despite expected disturbances from contemporary activities and post-depositional processes, the faunal assemblage closely resembles expectations of primary household activities described in ethnohistoric accounts relating to consumption, preparation, and storage of subsistence resources. Only a few expectations based on secondary activities are supported. Further work is needed to test these results throughout the Arctic and across time. However, these results suggest that archaeologists can use the direct historical approach, and related ethnographic analogies, directly to interpret archaeofaunal patterning in Thule semi-subterranean houses and middens.
Spirituality and the Seamstress: Birds in Ipiutak and Western Thule Lifeways at Deering, Alaska
Arctic Anthropology, 2014
Zooarchaeological data from sites 49-KTZ-299 and 49-KTZ-300 at Deering, Alaska, and ethnographic and oral historical information from Inupiat, Yupiit, Inuit, and other northern Indigenous communities are brought together to examine Ipiutak and Western Thule reliance on birds. Cut-mark, elemental-representation, and aging data from bird bones suggest that Ipiutak and Western Thule living at Deering between ca. AD 700 and 1200 utilized birds not only as food, but also as raw materials for making needles and sewing garments. Bird-skin clothing manufacture is a gendered and spiritually charged activity for northern Indigenous peoples, and the antiquity of these associations is explored. Although circumpolar bird subsistence encompasses intertwining economic, sociocultural, spiritual, and symbolic components, the dynamism and multidimensionality of these practices have been underrecognized in academic discourse on subsistence.
ÉTUDES/INUIT/STUDIES, 2013
This paper presents the faunal material excavated from an Early Thule Inuit semisubterranean house, house 15, from the Skraeling Island site (SfFk-4). In an effort to understand how the occupants of the house interacted with animals, a fine-grained zooarchaeological analysis is employed. Patterning in taxonomic and bone modification frequencies, skeletal element distributions, and prey demography are discussed. Inuit oral histories, mythology, and ethnographic sources are used to help interpret the results of the analysis and reconstruct the group’s subsistence economy.